In a significant move, distiller Jim Beam will re-focus future advertising from hyping heritage, quality and integrity and, instead, "highlight individuals and organizations that share its own values and have 'The Stuff Inside'", which is not at all a nod to, ya know, the stuff inside a Jim Beam bottle.

When they need to promote a drab or tiresome message, French creatives always know what buttons to push: the really, really shallow ones.

At left, Chanel's Karl Lagerfeld encourages pedestrians and motorists to wear yellow safety vests with the following message (big merci to desedo for translating): "It's yellow, it's ugly, it doesn't go with anything, but it could save your life."

- Apparently the Copyright Nazis are after more than just pirates these days. In the UK, you can be prosecuted for playing music too loud or playing it for callers on hold without a license. From now on, let's just keep all music secret and see how the record industry fares.

- Baseball and the Tour de France aren't the only sports to disillusion one-time fans; almost half of Advertising Age readers believe the NBA rigs its games. I fondly await the day Canadians lose faith in hockey. Oh wait, many - already - have.

- A Microsoft Xbox Live group banned a player because he used "gay" in his gamer tag, "RichardGaywood." Upon discovering that was the guy's name, they BANNED IT ANYWAY. Microsoft, you charmers, you.

Last week, Visa announced Lindsay Lohan would become the new face of this year's Visa Swap fashion show, a UK event which encourages people to swap unwanted clothing. Along with clothing charity Traid, Visa Swap is the place for the fashion conscious to check out the duds of their fellow fashion conscious brethren and buy them with points earned for donating their own clothes. All clothing items left over are donated to Traid.

[Witty Lindsay Lohan comment about how her clothes are no good because they are likely alcohol or puke-stained from her social antics goes here but...well....it's just not presenting itself right now.]

Playing against the somewhat limiting squeaky clean image the International Children's Games has, Grey SF came up with a campiagn that makes kids look at bit more...hmm...Dennis Rodman. Cuz, well, who wants to see a perfect Limited Too kid with Hannah Montana sneakers when you can see kids with tattoos, soccer ball heads and ears pierced with golf clubs?

Grey Creative Director said, "Once people heard about the idea, help came from all over. World-renowned photographer Jill Greenberg joined the team. Then the free media poured in with billboards, wildpostings, bus shelters, and posters. But best of all, the kids ate it up. So much so, we offered free haircuts and henna tattoos to any kid who wanted one, turning hundreds of kids into walking billboards."

Nothing wrong with a bit of kid-powered viral marketing. See the other two ads here and here.

Coinciding with the (coincidental!) release of a CDC survey that found Hispanic teens more likely to use drugs and try suicide than black and white kids, the Office for National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) launched this really weird campaign.

The heading above the girl at left says, "I sell drugs during recess." And here's one where a sheepish-looking boy divulges, "Yesterday, I offered marijuana to your daughter."

OK so there's nothing new about a horny dog humping a person's leg. Happens all the time. In fact, embarrassingly, it happened in the middle of a Cub Scout den meeting years ago. I never lived that one down. Anyway, this humping dog comes courtesy of Erwin-Penland for the Greenville Humane Society in South Carolina. It's goal is to urge pet owners to spay and neuter their furry one under the heading, Sips for Snips.Snips??? That's just painful!

Highlighting the fact 500,000 girls are sold into the sex trade each year, this Amnesty International commercial likens the process to a cattle auction. Not a pleasant scenario for a teenage girl whose hopes and dreams for life are anything but to become an enslaved receptacle for man's seemingly uncontrollable desire for sex.